W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 533
coins (none is known of Philip IV.) resorted to the expedient ;
and pieces with the titles of Sebastian are found, supposed
to have been revalued with a punch in the troubled days
which followed.
The titles on this long series, commencing with Sancho
I.
(1183-1212), the first king of whom there are any
autonomous coins with distinctive legends, underwent
no essential change beyond the introduction
of the prefix Dominus (the modern Dom\ and of the Dei
Gratia, of which the latter formula may have been borrowed
by Fernando I., 1367-83, from the coins of Pedro the
Cruel of Castile. The augmentation of Algarbii first occurs,
so far as we can see, under Diniz or Dionysius (1279-
1325). Alfonso V. (1438-81) introduced the practice of
recording on the money the order of nominal, and John
III. (1521-57) of regnal sequence, the former describing
himself as Alfonsus Quintus, and the latter as Rex Qiiintus
Decimus. Emmanuel (1495-1 52 i) amplified the legend on
some of his coins to signalise the acquisitions of his Crown
discoveries of Vasco da Gama and
by the geographical ;
down to the severance of Brazil in 1821, the currency for
Portuguese America bore the familiar globe, usually accompanied
by the ambitious revised motto Pecunia Totuin
Circuviit Orbein, and the designation of the king as sovereign
of Portugal, Algarve, and Brazil.
The contemporary Portuguese money consists of the
coroa and its divisions (|-, i, and ^} in gold, the 5, 2, I,
and i tostoes in silver, and the
'
20, 10, 5,
Current Series.
.
and 3 reis in bronze. The coroa is = 10,000
reis, and the tenth is known as the mtlrei, which, in the
absence of a second unit, serves the purpose for calculation
of heavier amounts ;
in the last and earlier part of the
present century the value was reduced to 960 reis for the
colonies. The modern coinage, on the whole, is quite
on a par, in respect to execution and style, with that
of France and Spain, but it shares the monotonous
and mechanical feeling and treatment of all numismatic
matters in more recent times without having
an histor-